


love you better

by talkwordytome



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Caretaking, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, i wrote this while listening to a whole bunch of country music and honestly???, it's a vibe, soft soft boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 22:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21107204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkwordytome/pseuds/talkwordytome
Summary: David crosses his arms with a huff. “But I’m sick,” he pouts, sniffling a bit for emphasis.Patrick fights the impulse to roll his eyes. David’s been complaining about his runny nose all day, and Patrick has been sympathetic, but even he has his breaking point. “I think you and your sniffles will muddle through just fine, sweetheart,” he says.David is sick. Patrick thinks he's exaggerating.Or: In Which This Fic Begins at Point A and Inevitably Reaches an Exceptionally Obvious Conclusion, but the Author Does Not Care, Because She is Very Gay and Very Soft for These Boys





	love you better

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I don't own Schitt's Creek or any of the characters. Trust me, you'd know if I did. There'd be a lot more soft sweet hurt/comfort care-taking.
> 
> Okay, so before I ever listened to the Dixie Chicks song "Love You Better" I assumed it was about loving someone until they felt better?? But it's actually like, "I can love you better than [x person] loves you" which is still cute, but I like my misunderstood version better. So that's my unnecessarily long title origin story!
> 
> Rated Teen for one teensy use of the f-word and a mild sexual reference. (Look y'all, I teach 3rd grade. I'm not out here to accidentally corrupt any youths. Also I may be a little bit of a square. Sue me.)
> 
> This is NOT beta'd, so any grammatical errors or other issues are totally on me.
> 
> Timeline-wise, I thought this could take place right at the start of season 5? When Moira is off in Bosnia filming her movie. Mostly because that explains away her very conspicuous absence. (Secretly she is absent because I do not have enough confidence to attempt to write her brilliant and brilliantly absurd dialogue yet, but maybe someday.)

It starts, as most arguments are wont to do, with a conversation. 

Patrick sighs, drums his fingers on the counter, and does his best to mask his irritation with benign, neutral concern. “We’ve been putting this off for weeks, David; at this point we don’t have a choice.”

David rolls his eyes. “Well, actually, we do have a choice,” he snaps, “which is to just put if off for one more night.”

“You’ve said that every night for the last three nights.”

“And miraculously, it continues to be true,” David says. “It’s not like the inventory is _going_ anywhere; why does it matter _when_ we do inventory, as long as at some point it gets _done_?”

“Because, David,” Patrick says, clinging to the ends of his frayed patience, “if we keep saying we’ll do it another day, it _won’t_ ever actually get done. Look,” he sighs, “I don’t want to deal with it either. But it’s not that late and it won’t take too long if we stay focused. We could even order pizza, listen to music, make a night of it. My treat.”

David crosses his arms with a huff. “But I’m sick,” he pouts, sniffling a bit for emphasis. 

Patrick fights the impulse to roll his eyes. David’s been complaining about his runny nose all day, and Patrick has been sympathetic, but even he has his breaking point. “I think you and your sniffles will muddle through just fine, sweetheart,” he says.

David scowls. “How _dare_ you,” he says. “I have a cold; you _know_ I have a cold!”

“Yes, and I also know that you’re a bit melodramatic,” Patrick says, not entirely unkindly, “and that you really, really don’t feel like doing inventory.”

David snatches a tissue from a box on the counter and stifles a sneeze into oblivion. “That’s unfair and you know it,” he says, wounded.

Patrick squints at him. “Is it?” he asks.

David is approximately two seconds away from indignantly stomping his foot. “Yes!” he says. “I didn’t _ask_ to be sick--”

“And you’re sure you’re really _that_ sick--?”

“I have a fever,” David says, “I’ll have you know.”

Patrick fights the impulse to smile. “I’m not sure that 37.1 counts as a fever, David.”

David is unmoved. “It is _considerably_ higher than 37.1,” he says. “Thank you very much.”

“Considerably higher, wow,” Patrick says mildly. “That changes everything, then.”

A flush that has nothing to do with fever crawls up David’s neck. “You know,” he says heatedly, “just because _you_ think you’re being funny and charming doesn’t mean I do.”

“David--” Patrick sighs, but David, busy fighting off more sneezes, ignores him.

The first one he manages to again stifle, but the second is too powerful, and he groans into his tissue. His sinuses are throbbing. His whole _head_ is throbbing. His breath catches in his tender throat and _that_ sends him into a bout of rattling, congested coughing. 

Patrick frowns, and a worried little crease appears between his eyes. “Hey,” he says, “that doesn’t sound great.” He moves to put his hand on the small of David’s back, but David jerks away.

“Oh, I’m sure my sniffles and I will be just _fine_,” David hisses. “Let’s just get the fucking inventory done, okay? So we can both go home.” _Separately_, he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t need to. 

They complete inventory in record time. When they finish packing everything up, David disappears into the sleety, frigid January night without saying goodbye.

~~~

It’s David who’s being ridiculous, really. As usual. Patrick knows he’s sick, but he wasn’t _that_ sick. Not to mention that David was the one who started the whole argument in the first place, _and_ threw a fit when it was clear he wasn’t going to get his way. That was how almost all of their fights went, and Patrick is tired of always being the one to apologize first. It’s David’s turns, he decides, and that’s that.

(This, of course, is a symptom of the whole problem, but Patrick tries not to think about that.)

He also tries, mostly unsuccessfully, not to worry about David. For example, he tries not to worry when David comes into the store the next morning, his eyes shadowed and his nose red and tender, with a box of lotion tissues tucked under his arm.

He tries not to worry about David when he sneezes and sniffles his way through that entire box by lunch, and another two boxes by closing.

He tries not to worry when coughing fits leave David wheezy and gasping for air.

He tries not to worry as the color in David’s cheeks grows steadily higher and higher.

He tries not to worry as David’s voice becomes so raspy that it nearly disappears.

He especially tries not to worry at the very end of the day, when David tells him--without meeting his eyes--that he’ll be calling off sick tomorrow, and is Patrick good to handle things on his own?

He tries very, very, very hard not worry, not even a little bit, not at all.

~~~

It has been three whole days since David has last seen Patrick, and given that he is surely a mere centimeter, a fingernail, a _breath_ away from succumbing to consumption he’s beginning to regret that their last words weren't more meaningful.

He is dying. He’s sure of it. For the past three days, David has coughed and sneezed and shot watery glares at the pyramid of tissues accumulating on his bedside table. His ears are so clogged that he may as well be living underwater, and they _hurt_, especially when he swallows, which he can’t seem to stop doing. He is weak, he is feverish, he is delirious. He’ll make his burrow of blankets as comfortable as he can, and then, eventually, he will perish. He just hopes that Patrick will wait a respectful amount of time before he finds a new boyfriend. He considers writing a will, but his brain is on fire, and he can’t concentrate. _This is how the world ends, or whatever that poem says_, David thinks gloomily.

David is floating in a particularly lovely, NyQuil-induced state of dazed not-quite-sleep when he hears a familiar voice murmuring on the other side of his bedroom door. _Oh, that’s nice_, David thinks, _I’m hallucinating Patrick._

“_mumble mumble_ in there.” Alexis’s voice. “_mumble mumble_ sick…_mumble mumble_ three days…_mumble mumble_...David!” that part is loud and clear, “your sweet little button is here, and he is _very_ worried about you.”

David tries to answer, he really does, but he can’t. Literally, it’s impossible; the heavy cough that’s nestled itself deep inside his chest has torn his poor throat to pieces and left him with a voice that’s hardly even equipped to handle a whisper.

He hears the door creak open. He thinks, maybe, that he should try to sit up and look a little less like actual death, but he simply doesn’t have the strength. He flings a wrist across his eyes and sighs mournfully. You know, for dramatic effect. Obviously. Once he's pleased with the tableau he presents, he croaks, "You may enter."

“Oh, David,” comes Patrick’s voice, all soft and tender and terribly sad. It makes David feel a bit like a Victorian invalid, which is strange, but not _entirely_ unwelcome. He could definitely pull off a pale and tragic aesthetic.

Suddenly, before David knows what’s happening, Patrick is kneeling down next to his bed and his hands--his cool, perfect hands--are sliding across his forehead. “Hi,” David rasps. “I’m very sick.”

“I can see that,” Patrick says quietly, his perfect hands making their way from David’s forehead to his hair and then down towards the nape of his neck. It is the best thing David has ever experienced, maybe. He closes his eyes and makes a low sound that's not completely dissimilar to a purr.

“Probably dying,” David adds. “Is this a dream? It feels like a dream.”

Patrick laughs softly. “Not a dream,” he says. “Just a high fever, I think.”

David narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Mmm, pretty sure it’s a dream. Like, that's exactly what you'd say in a dream,” he says, and then he pouts. “I haven’t seen you in _so_ long,” he says. “I've been waiting and waiting for you to come and see me. Days and days and days. I hate it when we fight.”

“I don’t like it either,” Patrick says, sounding distracted. He pulls a thermometer out of a plastic pharmacy bag. “Baby, can you sit up for me for a second?”

“You’re a weird hallucination,” David says, propping himself up on his pillows. Patrick sticks the thermometer inside his ear. “Are hallucinations supposed to be able to touch you? Because you're touching me. That shouldn't be allowed, probably.”

“39.7,” Patrick murmurs, frowning, once the thermometer beeps. “Do you know how long you’ve been this sick?”

“Oh my God, for_ever_,” David whines. “This stupid cold. It won’t go away. It’s a whole...phlegm situation, Patrick. And extremely not cute. I would be highly upset that you were seeing me like this if you were real.”

“David,” Patrick says seriously, “this isn’t a cold, not with that fever.” He kisses David’s forehead, gently, and for a moment David thinks that he must’ve finally, truly died in his blanket nest and has somehow, improbably, made it into heaven. 

“Hey, Alexis?” Patrick calls, and when Alexis appears in the room she looks worried enough that for the first time it occurs to David that all of this may be real after all.

“Is there any way you could ride with us to the hospital?”

~~~

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, to get more tea? Obviously?” David turns his mug upside down. “I finished mine.”

Patrick takes the mug out of David’s hand. “Get back on the couch and under the blankets, or I’m making you go back to bed.” Patrick instructs. “I’ll get your tea. Lemon again?” he calls from the kitchen. “With honey?”

“I’m not an _invalid_, you know,” David says irritably. “I can walk the few feet into the kitchen for hot water and a teabag.” He pauses before adding, “Ginseng this time. Please.”

“David, you have walking pneumonia,” comes Patrick’s voice, exasperated yet fond. “And a double ear infection. I’d say that’s pretty close to being an invalid. Like, definitely within spitting distance.”

“Uhm, _ew_?!” 

Patrick returns to the living room and hands David the mug. “You know,” he says, snuggling up close to David on the couch, “if I send you back to bed, that means no _Devil Wears Prada._”

David gasps and clutches his chest. “You wouldn’t,” he says. “You'd _dare_ deny me one of my favorite movies? Emily Blunt's _best_ movie? When I’m infirm, no less?”

He falls to coughing, ragged and wheezing, just as he’s finishing his sentence. Patrick quickly grabs the mug from David’s hands to keep the hot tea from spilling and rubs a warm palm on his back until the fit passes. 

When it’s finished, David looks up at Patrick, teary and flushed and sniffling. Patrick brushes a shock of dark hair away from David’s still feverish forehead. _I love you, so much that it’s frankly unreasonable_, Patrick thinks. 

“I think it’s probably time for your next dose of antibiotics,” Patrick says.

David drapes himself across Patrick’s lap and buries his face in the soft fabric of his hoodie. “I hate those,” he says, voice muffled.

“So you’ve said.”

“The pills are too big. I have a super reactive gag reflex, even though you’d think I wouldn’t, but _actually_\--”

“David,” Patrick interrupts, gently but firmly, as he readies the medicine and the mug of tea. “Maybe save that story for another time.”

David rolls his eyes but places the pill on his tongue all the same. He grimaces as it goes down and chases it with a huge gulp of tea. “Stupid antibiotics,” he says, resettling himself on Patrick’s lap. “Stupid walking pneumonia. That I _probably_ got from customers who go out in public when they’re sick, and don’t sanitize their stupid germy hands.”

They are silent for a few minutes as Patrick queues up _The Devil Wears Prada_ and makes sure there are tissues and cough drops within easy reach. He carefully maneuvers David off his lap, ignoring his half-hearted whines of protest, so he can add fresh water to the humidifier, along with a little eucalyptus and lavender infused patch. He settles back onto the couch (David happily returning to his former spot) and checks David’s temperature. 38.4. Not great, but better. He can live with better.

“Patrick?”

Patrick looks down. David is staring up at him; his eyes are glassy and tired, but focused. “Yeah?” Patrick says.

David is wearing the peculiar, anxious expression he always does when he’s about to cry, and a curious ache throbs somewhere behind Patrick’s ribcage to see it. “I’m sorry,” David says.

“I know,” Patrick whispers, barely audible. “Me too.”

David is sound asleep before the infamous cerulean monologue, but Patrick doesn’t mind. David is a heavy, cozy weight across his legs. His own personal electric blanket. He turns the TV volume down low and closes his eyes; it’s been a long couple of days, and he’s exhausted, too. _We’ll sleep for a few hours, and then we’ll make dinner_, Patrick thinks. It is such a spectacularly lovely, lucky, timely thought. 

He’ll fix something sweet and warm, Patrick decides, like waffles and hot chocolate. Something to see them through. He is so happy that he can give David this. They will nourish each other, in whatever small ways they can.

**Author's Note:**

> Temperature conversions! In Fahrenheit, 37.1 is about 98.8, 39.5 is about 103.5, and 38.4 is about 101. 
> 
> Alexis is only in this for a hot minute because I couldn't figure out a graceful way to include her in more, but she's one of my favorite characters and I'd really like to write more of her, I think.
> 
> There's literally NEVER any kind of time stamp for when any given episode of this show takes place?! Except for the occasional Christmas episode. But season 5 premiered right at the start of January, which is why this fic is set in January. 
> 
> Please please please leave comments if you feel so inclined! I'm a writer in my rare stolen moments of free time, and I really love any kind of feedback.


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